[22]. Hirschfeld naturally traces this morbid tendency back to the social ostracism of the homosexual. In my opinion that is a forced explanation. The very proneness of the homosexuals to affective disorders, their heightened sensibility, their morbid irritability, their endogenous depression prove that all homosexuals are severe neurotics. Hirschfeld may be able to trace the homosexual’s acute outbreaks of affective psychoses back to the actual conflicts. But it is impossible to link this heightened affectivity to the feminine attitude of the urnings. For if it were so, how could we explain the equally distressing analogous disorders among the urlinds? Hirschfeld refers to the anxiety states of the homosexuals (p. 916) and expressly states:
“This very condition is found frequently also among homosexuals who are psychically normal so far as their home relations are concerned.”
No—they are not normal with regard to home relations, they are severe neurotics on account of the repression of their heterosexuality. Superficial appearances are deceptive and many a person who appears outwardly to be the picture of health, a well balanced temperament, is inwardly the victim of a serious neurosis.... Hirschfeld refers further to the homosexual’s proneness to persecution manias and to delusions of reference. Concerning homosexual women he states:
“Compelled against their inclination to fulfill their marital duties the homosexual women become very nervous and, in addition to anxiety attacks, they suffer severe depressions.”...
How does Hirschfeld know that the depressions are due to the enforced fulfillment of marital duties? I know homosexual women who are divorced and suffer even more; I know homosexual unmarried women, who are as neurotic as the married women, and, like the latter, suffer of serious depressions. All these facts prove that the homosexual pays for his monosexuality just as dearly as the neurotic monosexual who is heterosexual.
[23]. Cf. Stekel, Berufswahl und Neurose, Gross’ Archiv, vol. XIX.
[24]. Beiträge zur Lehre von der konträrer Sexualempfindung Zeitschr. f. Psychol. u. Neurol., vol. VII, 1911.
[25]. I have at the present time under observation a soldier who for about three weeks masturbated 15 times (!) daily. Advanced hypochondriac. The motive seems to have been the development of a neurosis so he would be freed of military service.
[26]. The history of the same patient, as given by Ziemcke, refers to the same episode as follows: “At 17 years of age the first coitus with a peasant girl, pleasurable, no disorder.” A proof that the heterosexual episodes are always corrected in memory and modified in favor of a homosexual predisposition.
[27]. Regarding this occurrence Ziemcke relates: “Towards the last of his studies at Kiel he brought to his room a 12-year-old boy from the street under the pretext of carrying some books for him. When the boy returned he suggested making some experiments on him, tapped him first on the knee cap, then had him take off his stockings and kneel on the edge of the lowermost cabinet drawer; next he forced the boy to stand up stripped to the waist while he pricked him with a pen in the armpit and under the fingernails. After that he hung him by a rope tied around his hands, but the rope broke. Then he had the boy lie down on the sofa, lowered his trousers so as to expose the hips and gluteal region and proposed to pay the boy 5 pfennig for every one of 50 cane strokes. After the 43rd stroke the boy could not endure the pain any longer, so he increased the pay to 10 pfennig and gave him 5 additional strokes. It has been ascertained that the man had been drinking hard the night before carousing until daylight and according to his own testimony he was very nervous next day and had palpitation of the heart. He also stated that he had acted impulsively; he remembered well all the details of the occurrence but everything took place as in a haze. After the deed he had a feeling of relief, his usual excitement and unrest promptly subsided. Examination showed nothing physically abnormal and absence of any serious intellectual defect as well.”